Bengaluru, Apr 27: Congress and BJP tonight named their candidates for the May 19 by elections to Chincholi and Kundgol.

Congress has fielded Subhash Rathod from Chincholi and Kusumavathi Shivalli from Kundgol.

Rathod and Shivalli will be pitted against BJP candidates Avinash Jadhav and Chikkanagouda Patil.

Their candidature was announced by Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in a press note Saturday night.

Subhash Rathod from Banjara community is close to Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge, whereas Shivalli is the widow of Kundgol Congress MLA C S Shivalli, whose demise about a month ago warranted the bypoll.

Meanwhile, BJP too announced the name of the two candidates from the two constituencies.

The BJP has decided to field Dr Umesh Jadhav's son Avinash Jadhav from Chincholi and Chikkanagouda Patil from Kundgol," BJP spokesperson S Prakash said.

Jadhav is the son of Congress MLA Dr Umesh Jadhav, who resigned from the assembly and joined the BJP to take on Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha election recently.

His resignation warranted the bypoll in Chincholi.

The Congress decided the candidates at a meeting led by AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal, state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao and former chief minister Siddaramaiah at the state Congress headquarters this afternoon.

Congress working president Eshwar Khandre, deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara, and many other senior Congress functionaries were present.

The elections will be held on May 19 and the election commission has already issued a notification to the effect.

The counting will take place on May 23 along with the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections.

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Srinagar (PTI): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday criticised his Bihar counterpart over the niqab incident and said that Nitish Kumar might be slowly revealing his true nature.

"Nitish Kumar, who was once considered a secular leader, may be slowly showing his true colours," Abdullah told reporters here on the sidelines of a function.

Abdullah said Kumar removing the face veil of a Muslim woman doctor was wrong and cannot be justified by any means.

"We have seen this kind of incident here several years ago. Have you forgotten how Mehbooba Mufti removed the burqa of a legitimate voter inside a polling station? That act was wrong, and this act (of Kumar) is also wrong.

"If the (Bihar) chief minister did not want to hand over the order to her (Muslim woman), they could have kept her aside. However, to humiliate her like this is totally wrong," the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said.

Kumar stirred a huge controversy after he removed the face veil of a Muslim woman at a function earlier this week.